Google’s YouTube has now made their app available on Facebook’s Oculus Go standalone headset. The app was previously available on Samsung Gear VR, which uses the same store as Oculus Go, but Go was blacklisted until today.

YouTube VR launched on Gear VR back in July, but no word was given on Go support. At Oculus Connect 5 in late September, Oculus Product Manager Sean Liu finally announced that YouTube VR was coming to Go.

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The app allows users to view all of YouTube’s standard 2D content, but the main focus is on immersive 360° videos (a big focus for YouTube in recent years). Because it’s difficult to type in VR, the app provides a voice search function using Google’s best-in-class speech recognition technology, the same used in Google Home smart speakers. Users can view their own subscriptions, history, and playlists including their YouTube Music playlists.

The reason for the delay between the Gear VR and Go release is likely down to Go’s lack of Google Play Services- Google’s background software installed on all Android phones which have the Google Play store. It provides features and services to many Android apps, including YouTube. Go does not have it because Go uses Facebook’s own fork of Android, and does not have Google Play. Porting to Go will have required Google to remove any dependence on Play Services, or perhaps just have baked it directly into the app.

Google’s support for the Oculus platform despite having its own directly competing Daydream platform should be commended, but it may be part of a strategy to try and keep YouTube as the dominant video sharing platform in 360° content just as it currently is for 2D content. In the smartphone world, Google makes all of its apps available on iPhones despite owning Android, because Google’s revenue model is primarily based around advertising & services, not hardware.

Learn to spot various forms of public surveillance technology in this 10-minute interactive VR experience. San Francisco’s Electronic Frontier Foundation (EEF) released their new educational VR experience, Spot the Surveillance, on November 5th aimed at helping citizens increase their awareness of police and government surveillance equipment on the street. “We are living in an age of

The internet’s most convenient video-sharing service finally arrives on the world’s most convenient VR headset. Owners of the Oculus Go can now breathe a collective sigh of relief as the official YouTube VR app has finally landed on the standalone 3DoF mobile VR headset roughly 6 months after its original release. Starting today, users can

What’s the future of VR movies? Is it the simple accessibility of 360-degree video? Or do new technologies like volumetric capture present a more compelling experience?

Or will it be a mix of the above?

UNLTD’s Trinity suggests it might. Set to premiere later this week both on Steam and in VR arcades around the country, this strange piece of sci-fi presents an unexpected mesh of storytelling styles not soon forgotten.

In Trinity, you find yourself in the middle of a war between cyborgs but your exact standing between the warring factions remains unclear. The first episode sees you erratically warping between two sides of a battle at different points. You’ll watch firefights unfold in impressive 360-degree sequences with production values a step above what we’re used to seeing in VR before visiting what appears to be a strange other dimension in which full 3D content comes into play. You can see the trailer for the experience below.

I’ve seen the first episode, which mixes its various styles in an intriguing fashion. It reminded me of the no-compromise weirdness of sci-fi shows like Farscape and it touches on some interesting avenues for VR storytelling.

“A few years ago, nobody knew how to apply VFX into 360 spherical video,” UNLTD CEO John Hamilton told me over email. “We also shot volumetrically, which was originally only supposed to be used for transitioning between different 360 clips in the story. However, once we saw the potential of the point cloud visuals, we rewrote the story to add in entire scenes with the volumetric material.”

Not everything works; there’s one moment in which I’m assaulted by VR bullets inside a 360-degree clip, but the inability to move my head around to dodge them Superhot-style is jarring. But there are moments of curious connection between characters here, even if the overriding ambiguity leaves you feeling more confused than anything else.

I was also intrigued by the decision to premiere the piece at VR arcades. Hamilton was confident that could do great things for both the experience and businesses that support it. “Trinity is a great introduction to a highly immersive VR experience for first time VR consumers, who are increasingly going to VR arcades,” he said. “It’s plug and play and the interactivity is controlled by your head movement with no controllers to worry about. As a result, for arcades, Trinity will help to expand their customer base outside of the traditional gamer.”

As for the future, Hamilton says this is the first in a five-episode season, with each installment having viewers follow a different character. These newer episodes will also add new interactive elements that can affect the outcome of the story. “The possibilities in immersive story-telling are endless and I think we’ve really just started getting started,” he said.

Trinity arrives on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and in arcades on November 16th.

The long-anticipated expansion to Echo VR is nearly here, and we now know how much it’ll cost.

Oculus and Ready At Dawn today confirmed that Echo Combat will cost $9.99 when it launches on the Oculus Rift on November 15th at 12pm PST. You’ll be able to purchase the expansion as a DLC pack either on the Oculus Store page or from directly within Echo VR via the main menu or terminals in the lobby. Echo VR’s base game, Echo Arena, will still be available for free. Enjoy the new launch trailer below.

An Oculus Rift exclusive, Echo Combat provides a new twist on the zero-gravity gameplay first seen in Echo Arena and Lone Echo. You’ll take part in online battles in which you’ll seek to gun down other players as you throw yourself across arenas, protecting objectives and looking to destroy enemy targets.

The game’s going to launch with an assortment of new maps and weapons. Oculus also revealed that it’s bumping team sizes from 3v3 to 4v4 and confirmed that the game will feature a new progression system in which you’ll gain experience in public matches to unlock new cosmetic customization options.

Oculus says Ready At Dawn will continue to support the game throughout 2019, so expect even more content down the line.

Elsewhere, Ready At Dawn is also working on the sequel to the single-player portion of the Echo universe, Lone Echo II. You can see a new 360-degree trailer inside your Rift right here.

In the months since I purchased Oculus Go I lost the controller and found myself repeatedly unable to enjoy the headset because it was out of power. The official Oculus Go hard-shell carrying case should help with both these problems, in addition to its main job of protecting the device itself.

The official Oculus Go case sells for $35 on Amazon or the Oculus website and provides the perfect amount of storage space for the Go headset, controller, micro USB cord, headphones and even an extra battery pack or your phone. The case comes with a soft interior surface the same color gray as the headset itself. Its main compartment is sized exactly for Oculus Go, though there’s also enough room to to plug in a power cord while it’s still inside the case. The only note I’d make here is that you might have to find a micro-USB cord with a plug that’s not too deep or rigid to fit in between the Go and the hard case.

The compartment at front appears small in photos — and even in real life too — because it is actually designed so that the flap can flip upward if you store a couple things in it. I first tried to fit my battery pack and controller into the compartment and closed the flap over it only to be disappointed that it wouldn’t fit. Then I realized that when the flap flips upward any stuff in that compartment is kept in its place because it is backed up against the rigid front of the headset itself. So it fits fine with the flap upward. There’s even a little notch in the flap to run a power cord around to the headset. There’s also an adjustable divider in the front compartment.

Recommendation: There are plenty of carrying cases available for VR headsets costing as little as $15 or $20, but you’re unlikely to find another one that fits Oculus Go as snugly as this one does. You might pay a little extra for it at $35, but the hard shell and perfectly-sized storage compartments mean this case is neither too big nor too small while providing plenty of protection.

Remember Werewolves Within? It was one of Ubisoft’s earliest (and, arguably, best) experiments with VR, bringing a classic party game concept into headsets and making human body language and tone a mechanic unto itself. It’s one of the few apps that really tried to capture the power of social VR.

Anyways, it’s getting a movie. Yes, really.

A new video from the game publisher posted last week announced the film alongside a TV adaptation of Child of Light. It’s going to be a live action film that adapts the core concept of the game. “It’s a live action horror-comedy about a small town who sort of takes justice into their own hands,” screenwriter Mishna Wolff (ha! Wolf!) explains. “I’m just tickled by the idea of private justice and that sort of got the ball rolling for me as to what kind of a story could be made out of that.”

The film is spinning out of Ubisoft’s Women’s Film and Television Fellowship initiative. Other details like a director and potential launch window for the movie haven’t yet been announced.

Of all the potential franchises for Ubisoft to adapt into a movie we have to say we weren’t expecting Werewolves Within to ever make the cut. That said, we also have to admit the basic concept for the game — trust no one and suspect everyone — could make for a really entertaining movie.

Plus, who knows? If it does well then maybe we could see the series return to VR in the future once headsets are capable of taking its concepts even further.